The project counts with the participation of the CIB researchers Patricia Boya and Ana Martínez, in collaboration with another 13 international partners and tries to bring together some of the world experts in autophagy and lead industry as mentors to train a novel generation of scientists with the potential to drive the field towards translation.

In autophagy, cells deliver harmful or unnecessary cell components to lysosomes for degradation and recycling and its manipulation has an enormous therapeutic potential to revolutionize the way we currently treat cancers, neurodegenerative disorders, inflammatory and infectious diseases. Even though, the still limited applied research on autophagy has hampered the translation of fundamental knowledge into clinical-grade products and improved healthcare.

DRIVE will focus on training young scientists to fill this gap equipping its PhD students with a unique combination of knowledge and experimental expertise that are brought together in this consortium. The main objectives are to increase the knowledge about the precise contribution of autophagy in the different physiological and pathological situations, studying new models and searching for both new biomarkers for autophagy activity and assays to monitor autophagy in vivo and perform screenings for new autophagy-modulating drugs.

15 PhD positions are now available in the field of Autophagy around Europe (Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and United Kingdom) through DRIVE, which will provide to the students with an interdisciplinary platform integrating cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, chemistry and “omics” approaches.